Rare Books

Browse our collection of books that cover topics ranging from Appalachia and the American
South to the Civil War and Chattanooga. The Rare Books collection also houses first
editions, signed copies, and fine bindings, including illustrated works imagined by
renown artist and UTC alumnus Barry Moser. You will also find books by local authors
like Robert Sparks Walker and Emma Bell Miles in addition to books penned by UTC faculty and alumni.

Search Library Resources to discover books. If the location listed is UTC Library Special Collections (4th Floor), bring us the call number, and we'll bring out the book for you to enjoy in our reading
room.

Collected by University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Professor Jeffrey L. Brown, this
collection includes books, pamphlets, equipment catalogs, and manuals that document
the engineering in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection covers topics
as diverse as railroad engineering and hydraulics to iron mining and street cleaning.

Special Collections is home to a collection of books authored by the Fellowship of
Southern Writers. Founded in 1987 in Chattanooga by a group of nationally-known Southern
writers, the Fellowship of Southern Writers is a nonprofit organization which has
for its objective the encouragement of literature in the South. They meet every other
year in Chattanooga for the Celebration of Southern Literature. The books in the Fellowship
of Southern Writers Collection are housed in the Southern Writers' Room of the library
and include many signed first editions.

Charles Hubbard, a history professor at Lincoln Memorial University, arranged for
UTC to acquire his personal collection of rare books beginning in 2009. Its scope
varies, with books going back to the early 1500s and up to the 20th century. Of note
are first editions of books by Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, and Mark Twain; signed copies of Thomas Hardy and Faulkner tomes, nearly twenty
volumes with fore-edge paintings; histories of Great Britain; fiction; early travel
books; and theology texts.

This collection was donated to the university in the early 1950s. Mrs. Hyde, the
daughter of prominent Chattanooga Presbyterian Pastor Jonathan Waverly Bachman, was
a local historian and book collection. Her collection includes over twelve-hundred
titles of books focused on the American South, the Civil War, and American history.
Of special note is Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States, written by the father of Robert E. Lee, Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee. This 1869
edition was Robert E. Lee’s personal copy (he also wrote a brief biography of his
father for this edition) and bears his signature on a fly-leaf inside the book.

Barry Moser, a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga alumnus, is a world-renowned
illustrator and artist, who has provided illustrations or cover art for over three
hundred books, including many children’s books and classics. Some of our Moser-illustrated
titles are in a limited, numbered, and signed edition. The Special Collections also
holds separate works of art by Mr. Moser, including watercolors and wood-etchings,
and wood blocks used in the etchings.

This growing collection has over five hundred books, some published during the war.
New books and publications added as they are published or become available. The
collection is actively being compiled by former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
English Department head and George Connor Professor of American Literature, Verbie
Prevost.

Explore books published by University of Tennessee at Chattanooga faculty ranging
from political science and history to chemistry and literature. We encourage members
of the faculty to donate signed copies of your work to Special Collections.

In the 1950s and 60s, the University of Chattanooga spent over $10,000 on an endowment
from the Lilly Foundation of Indianapolis to acquire books relating to the American
Civil War. Eli Lilly (1838-1898) was an Indiana officer during the Civil War, and
a member of the 18th Battery, Indiana Light Artillery under the command of Colonel
John T. Wilder, also a Hoosier and later a resident and mayor of Chattanooga. The
collection consists of regimental histories (mostly Union), battle narratives, personal
memoirs of the war, and other Civil War histories, and includes over a thousand titles.

Day classes are cancelled, campus closed until 5 p.m. on Aug. 21

Although it was previously announced that all classes would be cancelled on Aug. 21, classes that begin at or after 5 p.m. will now be held. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience.

Aug. 21, will be a historic day. Chattanooga will experience a 90 percent solar eclipse. To allow faculty, staff and students to safely participate in this once-in-a-lifetime event, day classes will be cancelled on Aug. 21, and UTC will be closed until 5 p.m., when night classes begin.